B2B esports events and media company Esports Insider has announced the return of the ESI Digital Summer conference on September 8th and 9th 2021.
Esports News UK is once again a media partner for the event, which will bring together industry leaders in esports, sports and global brands to discuss and debate investment, esports ecosystems, education and more.
ESI Digital Summer will have more than 60 speakers, 400 attendees and more than 16 hours of live content across two days, and is also offering networking opportunities for all attendees. Speakers are set to be announced over the coming months.
The event will also include the fourth edition of The Clutch, a pitch investment competition which provides promising esports-focused startups with a chance to pitch to a panel of investors and judges.
This year’s winner of The Clutch will receive an exclusive place in Level 256’s incubator program, worth €5,000, and includes meetings with notable investors, partners, organisations and key accounts globally.
Level 256 launched in November 2018 by Paris&Co and with the initiative of the City of Paris, has incubated 32 projects dedicated to esports, which created 168 jobs and raised over €20m. The platform has gathered more than 100 speakers and mentors during their hosted events since its launch.
“We are looking forward to discovering the amazing entrepreneurs of the British esports world. It is also a great opportunity to support the European esports ecosystem by encouraging cooperation between France and the UK.”
Vincent Vercelli, Level 256 (Paris&Co)
Previous winners have included esports performance company GScience, which builds performance systems tailored to gamers, and Teams.GG, a gaming matchmaking platform allowing players to find like-minded people to create teams together.
Vincent Vercelli, head of incubation for Level 256 (Paris&Co), said: “We are very thrilled to be a partner in this fourth edition of the ESI and The Clutch. We are looking forward to discovering the amazing entrepreneurs of the British esports world. It is also a great opportunity to support the European esports ecosystem by encouraging cooperation between France and the UK. We are happy to welcome the winner to benefit from our incubation program and we hope that this first step is just the beginning.”
Sam Cooke, MD and co-founder of ESI, added: “I am really excited ESI Digital Summer will return this September providing world-class content and presenting some of the largest global brands, and will also host the fourth edition of The Clutch. This year we are looking forward to showcasing the most ground-breaking startup ideas and first-rate pitches in the industry, and as always, it will be a difficult process to whittle it down to a final four.
“Since its inception in 2019, we have continued to see more and more esports startups enter the space and here at Esports Insider, we are proud to continue providing a platform for those companies looking to stand out, and unapologetically push boundaries in the esports industry.”
Tickets are available for ESI Digital Summer here and applications to The Clutch can be made here.
Further reading: 3 key panels from ESI Digital Spring 2021: Valve’s approach to esports, the rise of chess and the importance of health in gaming
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
